Zsófia Bán on Richard Ellis

This essay is a response to Richard Ellis’ contribution in Global Perspectives on the United States. Ban argues that Ellis is absolutely correct that “a new kind of approach to USAmerican Studies” is necessary, but she offers a different interpretation of the film Lost in Translation. Hers is anchored in post-imperial and postcolonial exchanges that radically undermine traditional views of the imperial and colonial power of the U.S., its cultural exchanges and knowledge, and any form of cultural translation. Ban argues that the film exemplifies a different and much needed subspecies of “New American Studies.” That the film’s locale is Japan, and not a place along the Atlantic Ocean, Ban argues, is significant and does have much to say about the postmodern contingent global reality that the U.S. and Japanese characters live in. Ban is inclined to see the film as a postmodern discussion of the Jamesian topics of innocence and experience. It undermines Occidentalist (Western) idealist-modernist nostalgia, the expectation of exchange, and knowledge of a foreign land and